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BusinessDesk: NZ must choose between Europe and ‘the rest’ on climate change stance

New Zealand’s biggest choice in the emerging global deal to combat climate change is whether to side with Europe and Australia, which have emissions trading schemes, or with the rest of the world in whatever binding deal emerges, says Climate Change Minister Tim Groser.

In his first speech in the domestic climate change role since the resignation of the previous Minister, Nick Smith, on March 20, Groser told the Iwi Leaders Forum that Australia’s decision would be crucial to New Zealand’s choice.

It remained unclear “whether it will be just Europe or Europe plus New Zealand and Australia” that uses the framework of the existing global deal on climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, in the second period of international carbon emission reduction commitments, which will run from Jan. 1, 2013.

The Kyoto Protocol so-called “First Commitment” period runs out at the end of this year, with no new international order agreed, but a decision to spend from 2013 to 2020 on a transition to a “single and probably legally binding Agreement that will end the Kyoto distinction between developed and developing countries,” Groser said.

The speech lays out more clearly than previously Groser’s view that New Zealand did well at the Durban negotiations last year, in no small part thanks to New Zealand’s deep involvement in key parts of the detail of the negotiations.

As well as instigating a 30 country research coalition on reducing agricultural greenhouse gases, New Zealand is coordinating a working group on what Groser described as “the missing part” of the current agreements to price carbon – action on subsidies that support hydrocarbon extraction and exploration.

Groser himself is chairing what he calls “endgame negotiations” - the international negotiations that will lead to “the entire developing world and many of the largest developed country emitters led by the United States will make their commitments beyond 2012.”

With Kiwi diplomat Adrian Macey chairing last December’s Durban talks, Groser claims New Zealand “ended up with 100 percent of the responsibility for the mitigation equation,” the core of the climate change debate.

As a long-serving diplomat and ambassador before entering Parliament, the International Trade and Climate Change Negotiations Minister said this achievement was “quite extraordinary in terms of my experience of international negotiations and New Zealand’s contribution.”

“So the next time you read some loose and flamboyant comment about ‘New Zealand’s international reputation’ on climate change because the government will not endorse some extreme response on our ETS domestic legislation, I suggest you reflect on that,” said Groser. “We will not take a political step back on this point.”

He warned that he would not curtail his heavy schedule of international travel on both the trade and international climate change portfolios, and was looking to the newly appointed Associate Minister Simon Bridges to do much of the heavy lifting on domestic climate change policy.

“I have become deeply involved in bits of the international climate change puzzle that are, frankly, rather important.”

He warned also that the government’s over-riding responsibility was to manage the New Zealand economy soundly, and extravagant or overly costly solutions would not fly.

“That limits political soft choices,” Groser said. “This will influence the government’s final choices” following the current consultation. “Do not be surprised.”

(BusinessDesk)

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21 Comments

NASA Scientists Dispute Climate Change
49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

“There’s a concern that if it turns out that CO2 is not a major cause of climate change, NASA will have put the reputation of NASA, NASA’s current and former employees, and even the very reputation of science itself at risk of public ridicule and distrust.”

1 - there isn't enough carbon sink on the planet, to sink what we belch out. The money-believers think they can do it with money - which is akin to believing in the Great Pumpkin, or a god. This has to be done physically, it's a physics problem.

2. Having McCully in the central seat, is - in my humble opinion - akin to having the fox in charge of the hen-house. This will all be about relative advantage, pecuniarily.

To hear the news these days(see article above) people might think that Global Warming is an indisputable fact.
But here we have all these scientists disputing this. What could be happenning?
This is going to be so embarrasing for a lot of people when they discover that Global Warming isn't going to happen and they have been led up the garden path.

In terms of risk management, yes, in effect there is enough evidence to make a risk asessement on. Look at the insurance industry...they are in the business or making money at taking on risk....and they are baulking. as the %s are dramatically changed.
In terms of good and peer reviewed science, yes....49 ppl whose science isnt climate, how many actually work in the right part of NASA? probably not none....and then look how many pro-agw scientists there are....the numbers are 10s of thousands, overwelming and they have peer reviewed scientific papers to back them up...
For your second point, check that piece, the so called "scientists" dont deny global warming....they just deny its Co2 as the cause......
regards

No PDK the money believers do not believe they can do it with money. They believe that money is a good way to motivate and direct human ingenuity, which is the only thing that will find a solution to the challenge. Were you perhaps thinking that the world's physicists are more likely to devote their expertise to the matter if they were not going to be paid for it?

"No PDK the money believers do not believe they can do it with money. They believe that money is a good way to motivate and direct human ingenuity"
- No its a global tax system designed to remove even more money from individuals, companies and countries, with the added attraction of the relieving so called sovereign nations of their governance. It has little if nothing to do with motivating ingenuity!

Ah no, it's chiefly a chemistry problem, biochemistry in the main. Carbon sinks (and cycles) on this planet are largely the result of biological phenomena, not physics. Hence it's a matter for chemsitry (biochemistry), not physics. Of course if you actually knew anything about science you would know that.

huh? are they crazy, the real science and data on man made climate warming is overwelming.......2010 was hotter than the in-famous 1998 year despite 1998 being an el nino year and 2010 was a la nina.....
The basic science of CO2 as an infra red blocker effect is something like 200 years old....it can be shown as a simple experiment....
No one has yet put forward any scientifically verifiable explanation for AGW, but CO2 and man......
But I guess we have moved on from no there is no warming....
Maybe ppl should look at non-scientists, how about the insurance industry...and what that means for our insurance costs or insurance even being available.http://www.businessinsider.com/insurance-industry-trust-us-global-warmin...
"Our climate is changing, human activity is helping to drive the change, and the costs of these extreme weather events are going to keep ballooning unless we break through our political paralysis, and bring down emissions that are warming our planet. If we continue on this path, extreme weather is certain to cause more homes and businesses to be uninsurable in the private insurance market, leaving the costs to taxpayers or individuals.”
regards

OK...so I am going to assume you are a troll. This isnt a black or white thing, lets see, if you feel a "little cold" do you put on an extra light sweater? do you then sweat to death? no, you feel just fine.....
So maybe suggest something that already has not been considered in high depth for decades and rejected....that could cause global warming.....certianly we see that warming is happening.....certianly we see more and more extreme weather events and that we are still on a low co2 %.....its going to easily double....at that point our agricultural system will have collapsed (its near its limits now), fishing will be gone bye bye....acidic oceans mean no plankton so no sea food chain. We wont be able to support as many ppl as there are now let alone more.....so no not 9billion, almost certainly way below 2billion....
That is a lot of dead ppl....maybe you dont have [great-]grandkids? or hopes for some? 4Deg C plus pretty much guarantees you wont have them living very long. get to 6DegC and thats looking likely by 2150 and there wont be any humans either....we will be extinct.
regards

Steven, please allow me to be the first to record my condolences to you at the grossly unfair treatment that you have been subjected to today by interest.co.nz, on this very thread. I am outraged, on your behalf of course, at the site’s egregious invasion of your privacy, by publishing such an intimate and revealing picture of your good self at the top of this story, for the entire world to see. This is a monstrous outrage and should not be allowed to stand! And I protest to management in the strongest possible terms. You have just as much right to anonymity around here as the next ruminant. But I must say I am very disappointed to see that PDK has roped you into collecting your daily gaseous emissions. I do hope the hose is not too uncomfortable.

Man-made global warming is probable according to the UN, but not certain. Its even less certain that cutting down on carbon emissions would make any practical difference at all.

We need to cut down carbon emissions *just in case*. Its the prudent thing to do.
Only idiots think its certain that man-made CO2 is the cause, or certain its not the cause, but it is foolish to discount the possibility since the consequences are so grave if correct.

Arguing that man-made CO2 causes global warming or not is a scientific question, not something that should influence policy at this point, unless the probability is greatly reduced from where it stands now.

Believe is in someone's head until their family or themselves suffer. Religion is a great moral deflector.....as long as its someone else who is suffering but your faith says tahts OK, and you dont know them its an easy thing to do I suppose.
regards

More dark ages propaganda....
"Close examination of the Galileo Movement's arguments shows that the effort is recycling many of the same straw man arguments and distortions about the science that other groups have previously employed"
maybe follow the money,
The Galileo Movement's stated ambition is to stick around just long enough to "axe the tax." Gina Rinehart, the Australian ore (and coal) magnate whose coal investments have lifted her atop Australia's list of wealthiest individuals, underwrote a $100,000-plus Australia speaking tour that Smeed and Smit organized last year for Monckton."
So we have ppl complaining about scientists in it for the money, which has never been proved...but oh look at the oppositions funding......clearly vested interests.
"debunking the fallacies in the Galileo Movement's argument won't change the group's prevailing politics."
Its been debunked long agao for anyone capable of researching for themselves and putting politics aside.
regards

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